Building Resilience

Last month the NFPN News Notes Blog featured the remarkable story of Terry Morris and how his resilience took him from a horribly abusive childhood to becoming a rocket engineer at NASA. This month we look at how to build resilience.

On the Harvard Business Review blog, John McKinley writes that when it comes to identifying leaders who can effect lasting social change, what matters most is resilience. According to McKinley, the three key characteristics of resilient leaders are:

Grit: Short-term focus on tasks at hand, a willingness to slog through broken systems with limited resources, and pragmatic problem-solving skills.

With resilience in our own lives, we are then in a position to help others build resilience. Kelly Wilson, a clinician with expertise in trauma treatment, says that to foster resilience in children, the primary factor is having caring and supporting relationships. There must be an environment of love, trust, and acceptance, and role models who offer encouragement and assistance.